How I Am When You're Not Around
by Queen Edmund Pevensie
Summary: Sam left for college, and Dean misses him already. And for the third time in his life, Dean has a temper tantrum.


**A/N: This is set directly (and I mean thirty seconds) after Sam leaves for Standford. This is Dean not dealing. I apologize to Dean Winchester, for taking liberties with his personality, because I'm pretty sure I lost him somewhere in the middle of this. Also, John's personality flew out the window too. Oops. It doesn't matter, though, because I really wanted to write Dean with all of his walls down. Just raw emotion and missing Sam. Because in the middle of Season Five, he says that this was one of the worst nights of his life. Probably only second to Cold Oak. What I've learned, that's it is a thousand times easier to write a temper tantrum from an onlooker than the person having the temper tantrum. **

**Disclaimer: We'd already would have had this flashback if Supernatural was mine.  
**

**How I Am When You're Not Around**

Sam was gone. Just like that, and I knew if Sam had his way, I'd never see him again. He was just going to school I tried to remind myself. If Sammy wanted to become some lawyer then he could. It wasn't up to me or Dad to stop him. Sam didn't want this life no matter how good at it he was. So, I guess, if it was up to me , Sam could have his way.

Only this time, it was up to Dad, and Dad made the same call as Sam. Two against one that tonight was the last time I'd see Sam. It took every ounce of strength I had to make it back to the motel room and every ounce of willpower not to punch Dad. _Dad _had taken Sammy from me. Even though he promised to call, I knew Sam never would. I'd probably never even hear his voice again.

I wanted to cry. Every part of me wanted to scream for my brother in a way I never could growing up because I had to be there for him. I just couldn't. I was too tired to do anything, let alone something I'd trained myself to never do. I was too tired to cry and have the fit I wanted to.

"Is he gone?" asked Dad, as I reentered the room. I didn't answer. I didn't look at him. I pretended I couldn't hear him, because if I even acknowledged Dad, I might have been tempted to kill him. "Dean?" he asked again.

I was too tired to even resist. "Yeah," I muttered.

"Good," said Dad after a short pause. I took a deep breath. I knew Dad was just trying to fill the growing silence, but it still made me angry. "Come here and help me with this," he instructed before I could do anything…aggressive, referring to the hunt he was on. I couldn't even remember what it was he was hunting.

I closed my eyes, missing Sammy too much for the three minutes he'd been gone. "I'm going out," I announced, slamming the door behind me, before I hit Dad. Before I hit him for taking my Sammy away.

The entire way to wherever the hell I was going I could barely sit still, yet I could barely find the energy to keep my eyes open. I was forced to remind myself that Sam going to college wasn't the end of the world. He'd be fine and I'd figure out a way to be fine.

Except right now, being okay didn't seem like it would happen. He left Dad and he left me. And Dad had told him not to come back. Sam was just stubborn enough to take that to heart. Sam had been my whole world, practically my whole identity, since I was four-years-old and I was hurting enough then to admit that, in a way, the world was ending. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to stop it.

I stopped the car, frightened beyond words for reasons I couldn't explain. Any ounce of self-control I had left drained. I got out of the car and slammed the door with as much force as possible. The who car rattled. I kicked her too, so hard my foot hurt. I sank down, leaning against my car, shaking, glad no one was around because I was pretty sure they wouldn't have walked away. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have either.

I imagined Sam, months from now, and I wondered whether he would be happy. He had to be. It wouldn't be worth it if he wasn't. But against my will (and the part of my mind that was still functioning rationally) I sat in the middle of the road and imagined that he wasn't. That everything Sam wanted and sacrificed wasn't worth it and he wanted to come home but he couldn't, because we had kicked him out for good. I thought of Sam alone and out of practice, being hunted down by _something _and getting killed, and me not knowing because he wouldn't even talk about us at that damn school, because he wanted to get out and stay out and it would be my fault if he got hurt because I wouldn't be around to protect him. So what if Sam's an adult and can take care of himself? It would still be my fault if he was killed because I let him go! I let Dad tell him not to come back!

I was panicking and I guess I was being irrational, but I couldn't help it. My head was swimming with the idea of Sam alone, Sam hurt, Sam dead, Sam miserable, Sam without me, me without Sam. I couldn't think of anything but Sam. I was worked up, but I couldn't calm down no matter how hard I tried. I just couldn't think, and I think I might have been on the brink of hyperventilating

I don't know how long I sat there, but long enough for Dad to come looking for me. I was still worked up enough for him to try to stand me up, but I pushed him off and stood up on my own. I wouldn't meet his eyes. He looked so much like Sammy. Dad looked so much like Sammy and Dad drove Sammy away.

"Dean," he said, gentler than I'd heard in eighteen years. Eighteen years ago when I'd shut off. When I hardly said ten words a week for a year and didn't say anything at all for almost a month after the fire. Eighteen years ago when Dad was desperate to draw me out again and my first word had been, "Mom" and my second had been, "Sam."

I grunted in response and got in my car. I think Dad tried to protest, but I wasn't just going to leave my baby in the middle of the street. "Home, Dean," Dad reminded me.

"Yes, sir," I muttered, closing the door. Like I was actually going to drive off a cliff like he was worried I would do. Or to one bar after another until I drank myself to death, like I was tempted to do.

But I couldn't because even if Sam wasn't with me, I still had to be there for him. If he called, if he came back, I had to be here. Which was the only way I made it back to the motel in one piece. By lying to myself that Sam wouldn't be gone forever and he still needed me to look after him. I still needed to be able to look after Sam, look out for him, protect him from the monsters lurking in the shadows that he knew how to fight probably better than I did.

I opened the door to the motel room and crashed. Literally. I sort of just collapsed like I had earlier against the Impala. I fell asleep against the wall, not answering or even reacting when Dad told me to stand up and get in bed. He didn't force me, he didn't even order, which I vaguely processed meant he was going to let me throw my temper tantrum before we hit the road again.

When I woke up, I was sore and still too tired to move. Dad wasn't in the room, but I didn't care. Even if I could have, he walked back in before I had time to register the fact that I was alone. I took me a full five minutes to realize neither my father nor my brother were in the room. I guess Dad went to get breakfast or something, because when he reentered, he placed a bag on a small corner table, but I didn't get up, because I wasn't hungry.

What?

"Get up, Dean," said Dad, and I knew my allotted tantrum time was up. I couldn't, however, remember why I so wanted to kick over everything in the room or why I wasn't hungry, or why Dad let me sleep on the floor. I stood up, my muscles groaning in protest, wondering why the hell I thought it was a good idea to sleep sitting up, anyway.

When I was on my own two feet, however, I remembered. I could hardly stand straight. God, I'm such a baby. "Breakfast," ordered Dad. I didn't move. "Dean," he insisted.

"Not hungry," I grunted and continued to stand there.

He sighed as if that was the most frustrating thing I'd done in my twenty-two years of life, or at least the eighteen that he'd voluntarily remember. And I knew how frustrating it is to force food down someone's throat who obviously doesn't want to eat, but even more obviously needs it. Believe me, I knew, because I'd spent the better part of the last five years or so making sure Sam ate like a normal human being instead of some girl. And while it was frustrating, there were worse things than not eating.

Like leaving.

I wanted to follow Sam. I wanted to so bad. But what could I do? I would fit in even less than Sam even less over in prep-ville. My only friend in my entire life had been Sam. I was sure Sam would make friends, because who wouldn't want to be friends with Sam, and I was sure my presence in his life, his _new _life, would mess everything up for him. I couldn't do that to him. So I stayed put.

I didn't sit down. I stood there and I couldn't tell if Dad was angry or scared. I didn't care because Sam was gone, and I loved Dad I did, but I cared more about Sammy than anything else and Sammy, well, Sammy was gone.

I took a deep breath. Jesus, it was like I wasn't even _trying _to control myself. It was like I was doing this to myself on purpose. I couldn't even go ten minutes without thinking about Sam. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy…" It was torture, because each time I said his name, every goddamn memory of every goddamn time he was sick, or hurt, or scared from the time he was in diapers flashed before my eyes and I imagined him sick, or hurt, or scared or anything but _happy_ at Stanford and I know I couldn't make it better because he didn't fucking want me to!

"Sit, Dean," said Dad, probably more aware of how I was feeling, physically at least, than I was. His voice cut through the stupid self-torture that I wanted to _stop _more than anything else, and pulled my out just enough for me to realize I felt lightheaded, and Dad ordered me to sit anyway, so I sat down. Now my sentences in my head were barely coherent! "Will you be up for the hunt tonight?" he asked, almost conversationally, almost corporally, almost cautiously, like he didn't know what my exact reaction was going to be.

"What?" I asked, placing my head in my hands, even though I wanted to look Dad in the eye and tell him I was more than ready to work. Damn it, I _wanted _to work! But all that came out was "what?" And not "what?" as in, "sorry Dad, I wasn't paying attention," but "what?" as in, "what the hell are we even hunting?" and "what was the only miserable word that I could force out.

I don't know if Dad knew what exactly I meant. I knew Sammy would have, just like I can tell with a single glance how he's feeling. I could tell in a way that no one else could, in a way that no one else would ever be able to, and I'll be damned if in that moment I didn't think that I'd always be able to know how Sammy felt, even if I was three-thousand miles away. But it didn't matter, because Dad took my "what?" for a "no."

"Dean," he said, trying to persuade me, which he didn't need to do. _I _wanted to go. _I _wanted to work. It was my _body _that decided it couldn't right now, thanks. My _body, _not me. "I could really use the help."

"What?" I asked again, because I still couldn't say anything else, and I still didn't know what the hell we were hunting. I suddenly felt ashamed because I could feelmyself shutting down and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about that either. Or if there was, I was too worn out to do anything. I wasn't four, because, Jesus Christ, that was certainly how I felt. Only worse, because I'd known and practically raised Sammy for eighteen solid years, and I'd only known Mom for four.

Shit. That's Mom and Sammy in one train of thought. I felt a lump forming in my throat, but I pushed it down. I was too damn old to cry for Mom. I was too damn old to cry.

I guess Dad didn't understand my question. But who could blame him. It had been sixteen years since I had decided multi-syllabic answers were completely overrated. Or, at least, sixteen years since I'd last _not_ spoken. And Dad…he was just as clumsy with feelings and words as I was.

"So, if you feel up to it," he continued, and the fact that he gave me a choice is how I knew he was worried. "I want you to be ready by dinner." My stomach still churned at the thought of _breakfast _let alone _dinner. _I didn't even try to ask what he was hunting again. I decided I didn't even care. "It's important," he urged. "So try to pull your shit together," he just kept continuing, his words beginning to wear a little thin pm the wall I was just starting to rebuild around me, the one Sammy had torn down last night. The one Dad took a sledgehammer to and Sammy took each brick and scattered it across the goddamn earth. "Because this is one hunt I'd rather not be on alone," a sledgehammer, Dad, and his words were grinding up the newly poured foundation. The wall that I kept 17-and-a-half- years of scared little boy behind. One that I knew Dad had too. One that he was willing to sacrifice if it meant his could go intact. Only Sammy didn't have a wall. "And there's no one else I can trust like you boys," he said. I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to make him understand "shut up" without saying a damn thing, because the words just wouldn't come out, and his words were pounding against my skull. "But your broth–"

That was it. The final straw. The one that broke me. I just couldn't deal with it because I couldn't be there for Sam. I couldn't help him, couldn't provide for him, couldn't fucking protect him, so he left us, and Dad, who told him to stay away, was talking about "my brother," my _Sammy, _like the best hunter a man could ever find.

And he was. He was a damn good hunger, better than I was and better than Dad if he wanted to be. But to hear Dad talk about _Sammy_ like a _hunter, _something he didn't want to _be, _the reason he left in the first place…

I shot up out of the char and knocked over every unsuspecting thing on the table. I knocked over the whole damn table too, so Dad was sitting in a chair facing me and I couldn't quite read the expression in his eyes. Any anger fuelled adrenaline, or adrenaline fuelled anger, drained out of me in seconds. I wasn't going to collapse, I wasn't going to just give up, so I stood there, fuming, holding onto some pointless anger, wonder how long I could let it hold me up, when Dad said my name.

I growled and kicked the mess I made some more until Dad got up from his chair and told me to stop. A direct order. _Stop it, Dean. _I would have. I was burnt out, anyway. I think he was talking about a lot more than the destruction of our motel room. _Stop it, Dean. _Stop carrying on like you're six. Stop acting like Sam leaving is the end of the world. If you can't deal with something like this, how the hell are you going to deal with anything else?

I gave up, too tired to cry. I hardly had enough energy to breathe. But I _had_ dealt with worse. I'd seen Mom burn up. Dad didn't know, but I had. It scared the shit out of me then, and still scared the shit out of me now. I'd seen family after family destroyed and probably hundreds of deaths too gruesome to put into words. I dealt with _all _of that. I'd dealt with more than most people deal with in a lifetime, and I'd dealt with it from the time I was four, when Dad sat me down and told me monsters were real, and that's what killed Mom. When all I could do was cover Sam's ears and ask feebly, "Mom?" and Dad had to explain she wasn't coming back, and the only thing I could say for almost a year after that was, "Sammy?" and Dad smiled sadly, because only Mom had called him that before the fire, and he made me promise to "protect Sammy," and when he said the name, it rolled off his tongue just like it did mine, and it was only at Sam's insistence that we called him, "Sam."

And in all that time, I'd only had two temper tantrums, but Dad didn't count either of them. Maybe it was his way of telling me grown men could have feelings too by letting me have two, not counting this one, "complete meltdowns," Sam would have called them. They were sort of about the same thing, and I was a kid. But now…now I was an adult and I was behaving like a child.

I looked at the mess I'd made and I felt my face go hot with shame. I couldn't act like this. I had to calm down. I had to get my shit together and ignore the hole I'd never felt before. I had to ignore it for the person who left it. Just like when I was five, I went to kindergarten, and Dad told me to be a big boy because that's what Mom would want, and Mom was so proud of me already.

"I'm sorry," I muttered, looking up at Dad.

"Clean it up," he ordered gently, not because he was angry, but because, although Sam might think differently, Dad knew me well enough to know the only way I was going to do anything the next few days was if I was ordered.

"Yes, sir," I said. And I did. I was sore and tired, but I did it without a word. After it was done and the table was in its proper vertical position, and there were not remnants or any proof at all of the tiny tantrum I just had, Dad asked me about the hunt again, this time less like a soldier and more like a time bomb, and I _hated _feeling like he could trust me, or that I couldn't handle things or hold myself together.

I wanted to tell Dad I was fine. I could come. I needed to come, but what came out of my mouth was, "Sorry." I hated that word. I hated it. More than anything, I hated being weak. I hated having to apologize for it.

Dad sighed and I knew I was letting him down. I hated that. I hated that I was too weak to help him, to deal with Sam leaving. I almost got myself worked up again but Dad pushed me onto a bed, a little roughly, because the man's not made of kittens, and told me to sleep and I'd feel better when I woke up. I doubted it. I bet money I'd feel just as worn out and useless and alone as I did now, but I didn't say so.

"If everything goes well," said Dad, and I was really freaked out by how gentle and caring he was being, like I was made of glass, like I'd shatter if he even touched me wrong and that thought alone made me want to ignore everything else and hunt and save people and _not _be completely useless. "We'll hit the road tomorrow morning."

"Sammy," I protested, and I hated that too. Because it was like my body deicide communicating was out of the question today and no one sent my brain the memo, because it was still forming sentences like Sam's. You know, with punctuation and mostly correct grammar, and mostly intelligent things to say.

"Sam made his choice," said Dad, and that made me angrier than I had any right to be, and the grammar and punctuation and intelligence just flew out the window, and besides, that wasn't what I was saying, dammit!

"No!" I said shaking my head, and I felt five. "Dad, _Sammy._" I didn't like this. It was frustrating beyond belief that Dad didn't understand, and why my mouth didn't just do what it is supposed to a follow it's damn orders! "He's not safe, Dad!" _Finally! _

Dad sighed. "Dean," he started, but I could feel myself getting angrier by the second. God, maybe this is what it's like being Sam, always getting emotional for really no reason at all.

"He has to be safe, Dad!" I growled, and it didn't come out whiny, or bitchy, or indignant or any of the other words I would use to describe the way Sam argues. It was just confident and self-assured and angry. It looked like Dad was about to argue again, so I cut him off before he could. "If you won't look out for him, then I will," I said decisively. "Even though he doesn't want me to, I will." I stood up again, and I could tell that Dad was tired of this conversation. Then I realized I was having a conversation (a one sided conversation), and maybe Dad would let me come tonight, after all, so I didn't sit here, useless. "Just like I always have," I tacked onto the end for good measure, just so he knew I blamed him for Sam want to leave in the first place.

"Dean," said Dad.

"Promise, Dad," and at this point, I have no idea how I felt and no wonder Sammy cried too much! "It's my job. Our job," I amended, because lately, Dad realized that Sam was hardly his son at all. Adding insult to injury was never the way to go anyway. But then, I realized I didn't care. "My job."

Dad closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he looked a thousand years older than people are supposed to and said, "Sam made his choice," so I punched him.

At least, I tried to. Bobby used to say Dad could have won Vietnam if he wanted to, he was that goddamn determined and terrifying when he was angry, and someone you should be scared of when he wasn't. He was almost forty-seven, but he was as quick as if he was seventeen and smarter than that too. So the only time I ever tried to hit my father, he stopped me before I did any damage. If he let me, I would have. I wouldn't have stopped until I broke a number of bones in his face for even suggesting that we leave Sam alone. Again. Why did he keep reminding me that Sam _chose _to leave?

But see, Dad didn't let me do any damage, partly because all hunter have a terrifying instinct of self-preservation and will shoot first ask questions later if anyone threatens them or their family and I guess I was doing both, because the second part was that if he let me do what I wanted to his face, he knew I would just sit there for the next few months, because that's what I did when I lost the people I loved, and I'd just lost Sam, so why should I feel like I was losing Dad too.

"Dean," he said firmly, and it's almost comical how we talk to each other in this family. We always address each other directly before we say anything and Sam is the worst about it. Sometimes, he says my name like three times in one sentence. "Stop. Calm down."

Like kindergarten, when I made him promise to look after Sam while I was at school and I don't think I'll ever fully grasp what that did to him.

"Dean," he continued. "It's all right. It's okay. Everything's okay, Dean." He pulled me back down on the bed and then onto his lap, That startled me, and looking back, I'm surprised I didn't hit him again, but he held me like he did when I was four after the fire, and I don't talk about it and I'll never tell Sam, but I was glad he did. I was glad he held me in a way he hadn't since that night, like I was a kid and not a full grown man. Then, Dad laughed softly. "You didn't think I was going to leave him alone out there?" he asked. "You know what happens when Sammy's alone." I did. The thought made me want to cry. I didn't cry. I just sunk deeper in Dad's lap, the way Sammy used to do when he was little, except always into my lap, never Dad's. "I'll check on him, Dean," he promised. "He'll be all right."


End file.
